Personal Strategy for Bridging the Digital Divide

For the same reasons that a classroom used to be incomplete without books, a classroom today is incomplete without technology. It is absolutely vital that students have digital access in the classroom because with the shear amount of subject area content, as well as the various other social purposes of the classroom education, digital access is an invaluable tool that goes to great lengths to provide modern students with a modern education to survive in the modern world. If a school does not provide the level of technology I would like in the classroom, but does provide some technology, I could work with what I had and try to make the best of it, hopefully only until the school revitalized its accommodations. I would consider at least one computer with an internet connection and an overhead to be my bare minimum of acceptable technology in the classroom. If the school could at least offer this, I could assign more of the technological learning to be done in a computer lab or as homework. If the school did not have a computer lab or most students did not have technology at home, then I could organize trips to the local library which is sure to have at least some level of technology. Of course, such trips would be arduous to plan and carry out several times over a school year, so the option is not ideal. Other strategies to secure technology at the school would be to petition the district or even above. Writing letters to congressmen, educational institutions, or charity organizations could all help provide the school with donated technology. Seeking out government aid programs could also help, if the school was in a low income neighborhood or had some other reason for qualification. Getting the parents involved could also be helpful. Parents could donate money themselves or raise money or awareness through campaigning around the community. The students could even help raise the money themselves through a variety of events such as selling tickets to a fair, talent show, or some other school event, as well as selling goods through a bake sale or garage sale.

Rosy Aguila realized the value of the internet in education in 1994 and has been working to link teachers and schools to each other since that time through Todos en la Red, a national network of schools, created by Aguila and several other teachers. She is also president of the nonprofit organization that runs the network. http://www.edutopia.org/rosy-aguila

Kim Cofino lays out several ways teachers can use limited technology in their classroom in the most efficient ways and with impressive results. She is an advocate of networking with classrooms all around the world to connect students and teachers to each other. http://mscofino.edublogs.org/

David Warlick explains how if the school could merely provide Wi-Fi access, parents would purchase personal devices for students to access the web such as iPod touches or net books. http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/

Wesely Fryer has an interesting blog discussing how libraries are going to take a more relaxed view toward internet censorship, which would allow students access to a wider range of features, such as twitter and facebook. http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2009/11/11/digital-citizenship-in-libraries-constructively-leveraging-the-power-of-the-social-web/

Tim Wilson blogs about a self-paced set of tutorials to help teachers get familiar with web 2.0 tools. Sometimes, getting other teachers or administrators on your side is the best way to improve the digital access at your school. http://technosavvy.org/2008/05/12/learning-on-a-stick-minnesota-style/

The teacher leader

Being a teacher leader to me generally means being like a super-teacher. Teacher leaders are the teachers at a particular school that work actively with clubs, sports teams, PTA, and a number of other things. Teacher leaders devote large amounts of their personal time to the school and the profession in general. Teacher leaders attend conferences whenever possible and share that information with any teacher that can benefit from it. The two resources I found were Hal Portner’s article, Are you an Informal Teacher Leader (http://teachers.net/gazette/OCT08/portner/) and an interview with Dr. Betsy Rogers, 2003 Teacher of the Year (http://www.teacherscount.org/topic/topic-rogers.shtml). Portner’s article focuses on the concept of the informal teacher leader, which is essentially a teacher leader that is not an administrator. He emphasizes that teacher leaders are those who stay in the classroom and project their leadership role from there. Dr. Betsy Rogers explains her view of the teacher leader as a teacher who strives to make an impact, not only on his or her school, but on the community as well. These sources make it clear that a teacher leader is involved in after school activities and facilitates school improvement in any way possible. In my career as a teacher I do intend to attend conferences and continuing education programs, partially so I don’t lose the edge that coming from an accredited program has provided me with, and also because it is one of the best ways to make sure you are always providing students with the best possible education.
Do you think being a teacher leader is something we should strive to be in our first years as teachers or should we start out as teacher followers for the first few years?

The networked student

The human network is essentially a term that describes the social connections humans make with each other, using a variety of mediums. With the advent of more powerful technologies, the human network becomes more intricate and tightly woven, providing the opportunity for more connections with more people than ever before. The networked student is a student who is taking advantage of the human network, especially through technology, to improve the quality of his or her learning experience. The networked student has a variety of contacts, beyond the teacher, classmates, and textbooks. The networked student utilizes RSS feeds, synchronous communication, and practices sound information management practices. Digital literacy is vital to the networked student because digital technology is the medium through which he or she operates, necessitating a grasp on how to use the advanced tools provided by digital technology and also knowing how distinguish threats and poor information throughout the medium. The role of the teacher evolves in networked learning to a facilitator of the students needs, as opposed to a facilitator or raw information. The teacher helps the student build digital literacy by guiding them through poor information and giving them the tools to succeed in the digital realm. The model of instruction is basically a constructivist approach to teaching, which seems to be the newest school of thought in the education community. It truly seems like the best way for learning to take place, however I wish there were more actual studies to prove that the method is ideal. Provided I was working at a school where this method was viable (i.e. available technology and willing administration) I could absolutely see myself in the role, as it alleviates some of the burden of being a teacher, which is already one of the most stressful jobs to have.

The networked learning blog I found is written by a member of the Department of Information Studies in the UK and contains several posts related to her work with networked and inquiry based learning (http://cilass.group.shef.ac.uk/?cat=4). Several posts include comments about technologies in the classroom such as Second Life. This blog hasn’t been posted to recently but she does have a second blog that is linked to this one.

My question to anyone reading this is do you think this method is worth fighting for if you don’t initially have access to the technology at your school and the administration is unwilling to venture out into foreign territory?